Dragon Ball Z: Dynasty – The Season of Dragon Ramen
Written by: Feraligreater328
Overseen by: StevenBodner and SparkerLightning
Chapter 8: Forgiveness
On Dragon Rock…
Chi-Chi took on a vicious fighting stance, her teeth gritted, and her jaw clenched so tightly it seemed as if it might break. She snarled at Ghastel. "Give me that polearm! NOW!"
Ghastel scowled. "What the hell is this?! A human woman?! You sure you ain't meant to be sliced up and set on the food table, toots?"
Melee rolled her eyes. "Gross."
Ghastel took a step towards Chi-Chi. She clenched her fists, ready to attack. A shuffling behind her made her turn her head and she saw that other demons were beginning to climb up onto Ghastel's platform, their eyes full of hunger and murder. Ghastel guffawed. "Yer outnumbered!"
Chi-Chi snapped back. "If you don't drop that polearm right now, I'll bust your teeth out!"
Before things could escalate further, Tien, Chiaotzu, Piccolo, and Chika all leapt into the fray. They stood in a back-to-back formation, Chika sticking close to her mother. Piccolo glared back at Chi-Chi. "Nice and stealthy. How could they have ever spotted us being here?"
Chi-Chi grunted. "Bit me, Piccolo. This isn't the time!"
The other warriors all took on fighting stances as well and got ready for the brawl to come. Ghastel rolled his eyes. "These humans seem to forget whose soil they walk on. Let's press some fear into 'em before we eat 'em up~!"
Ghastel turned the polearm over in his hand and jammed the blade into the ground. Chi-Chi flinched, a vein popping out of her forehead. Ghastel cracked his fingers, then reached behind his back and produced a massive, black taiko drum. Pulling his clubs from his belt, Ghastel smirked. "Let's see how you fools like my music!"
Banging the clubs against the leather hide of his massive drum, Ghastel began to echo out a deep, foreboding melody. As the melody became faster and faster, more clouds started to roll in. Black clouds. Angry clouds. The sky began to rumble and shake with hateful, demonic anger. Tien cocked his head toward the sky. "What the hell?"
Chiaotzu's eyes went wide. "Huh?"
Piccolo snarled. "Get ready! Here comes a downpour!"
Unsure what to make of the rain, the three warriors rushed foreward. If this was meant to be some sort of camouflaging tactic, they would certainly get the first jump. But then, as the rain struck their skin and as it began to shower, the three of them found their strength rapidly fading away. Chiaotzu hit the ground like a stone. Tien fell flat onto his chest. Piccolo fell to one knee. "What the hell?"
Ghastel chuckled. "The Demoniac Downpour! It's my special demon art! Mortals entering this realm without the formal invite of one with demon blood shall have their very lifeforce drained by this hateful drizzle!"
A larger demon with a sword stomped up to Piccolo, hovering his blade over the Namekian's neck. "Not that you'll be allowed to suffer long, meat!"
He raised the sword, but then a heavy kick slammed into the demon's gut, and he went flying all the way into a nearby rocky spire. The rock formation crumbled, and Chika landed with an angry, pouting look. "Leave Mr. Piccolo alone, you meanie!"
Ghastel flinched back. On the ground, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo all gasped. Chika, by no means a trained warrior, took on a basic fighting stance. Her tail curled and wagging behind her bristled on the end. Shula gasped. "Y-You! You're just like that brat from all of those years ago!"
Without waiting permission, Shula charged forward and tried to chop Chika in the neck. She instinctively ducked and then punched Shula in the jaw, making one of his eyes bug out and sending him crashing into the table behind him. Gola cried out for his comrade. "Sh-Shula!"
Melee face palmed. "Not again…"
Chi-Chi looked back at her daughter, totally stunned. Stomping in a puddle of fetid, demonic water, Chika glared at the monsters threatening her loved ones. "I won't let you hurt Mr. Piccolo, Mr. Tien, or Mr. Chiaotzu!"
Hearing the girl's courage, Tien used all of his strength and started pushing himself up. The other demons started to gasp. Some of them even started to panic. Staring down this uppity little brat and this mouthy human woman who seemed unaffected by his rain, and the three fools on the ground who were, Ghastel rolled his eyes. "Gimme a break…"
The demon twitched his finger with a smirk. "Can't believe Shula lost to a brat~"
*SHUNK*
Chika's eyes went wide. She shot forward, out of her own power, and sailed over Ghastel's shoulder. Her tummy was hot and her pants felt wet. She didn't quite understand what had happened. Her forward momentum stopped and then she began to rise into the air, her arms dangling limply beneath her. She groaned as a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. "M-Mommy…help…"
Ghastel cackled as he waved around Gyuhime's polearm, totally unknowing that he had Gyuhime's granddaughter dangling on the end of the dire blade. Ghastel cackled. "Man! Shula sure is pathetic! Gahahahahaha!"
Melee looked utterly disgusted. "That's a kid, Ghastel. Shit…"
Chi-Chi's eyes went wide, her pupils shrunk. "CHIKA!"
She charged at Ghastel, her nostrils flaring. Ghastel used his free hand to raise one of his clubs, smashing it down onto the drum. "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
A bolt of black lightning shot down and crashed into Chi-Chi. She shrieked in agony, but the sight of the light fading from her daughter's eyes kept her from buckling. Chi-Chi gritted her teeth and took a heavy step forward. Ghastel flinched in a brief flicker of fear, and then beat his drum again. And then three more times for good measure. Four bolts of lightning hit Chi-Chi in sequence. They frazzled her hair, they singed her skin, they made her body spasm, and, finally, they burned the scarf from the top of her head.
Chi-Chi's hair flopped down and her massive, shining horns were exposed for all to see.
A fearful hush fell over the party of demons. Ghastel went green in the face, his fist clenching the polearm so hard that his knuckles turned white. Piccolo, Tien, and Chiaotzu all stared in shock.
Then one drunken demon cried out. "HOLY SHIT! IS THAT FRIGGIN' GYUHIME?!"
Panicked rabbling began to fester among the demons below. Some shrieks of fear and then genuine panic. Ghastel had a lump in his throat the size of a cannon ball. "W-Will all of you shut the hell up?! This can't be Gyuhime! She's dead! Long dead! Murdered by those dumbass human martial artists! The Birds, er, uh…THE CRANES!"
On the ground, Tien and Chiaotzu's eyes went wide.
Ghastel pointed the polearm at Chi-Chi, Chika still hanging limply from the tip of it. "Who the hell are you, woman?!"
Chi-Chi shot him a truly hateful glare, her eyes blood-red pools with lunatic spirals circling round. Ghastel shuddered. She seethed. "I am Chi-Chi, daughter of Chika the Ox-Princess! And you…"
Chi-Chi stomped forward, grabbing her daughter's limp, cold hand. She pulled Chika off of the end of her mother's weapon and held her daughter close. "..you…"
She was too weak. Too damaged. Ghastel cackled. "HAW HAW HAW! So, this is what the Gyuhime's legacy is?! That's pathetic!"
He raised the polearm into the air. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE AND JOIN YER HUMAN-LOVIN' MOM?!"
Chi-Chi held Chika close and closed her eyes. As the blade fell, the wife of Goku fully passed out. Death came closer to her neck second by second.
And then Piccolo jumped between her and the blade, blocking it with his arm and calling out. "NOW!"
Tien and Chiaotzu both leapt into the fray, their strong bodies barely able to budge under the demon rain. They both splayed their hands in front of their faces and cried out in unison. "SOLAR FLARE!"
A blinding light engulfed the entirety of Dragon Rock. All of the demons cried out in pain and held their eyes. Once some of this, Ghastel first, regained their vision, they looked at the spot where their prey had collapsed. All that remained was a small pool of purple and red blood.
Later and elsewhere…
Chi-Chi's achey, gummed up eyes fluttered open and she groaned. Her entire body ached like she was beaten with a bamboo rod. She shakily and slowly started pushing herself up. Then, the image of a little girl skewered on a blade flashed through her mind and her eyes cracked wide open. She sat up rail straight and cried out in panic. "CHIKA!"
Chi-Chi felt a rustling next to her and looked over, she her daughter restling peacefully on what appeared to be Tien's folded up shirt. Her face was restful, the wound that once was split on her torso only apparent by the bloody gash on her shirt. The sunlight gleamed down through the treetops above and sparkled against her tiny, fledgling horns. Chi-Chi reached up and touched her own horns. "My poor baby…"
Tien spoke. "She's fine. We had an extra Senzu Bean."
Shuddering in her own skin, Chi-Chi snapped her attention to Tien. He was sat with his back pressed to a tree. Chiaotzu was sitting next to him, looking troubled as he drew in the dirt with his finger. Piccolo was hovering in a meditative state. His eyes opened and he looked over at Chi-Chi.
The housewife gasped in horror, reaching up to her exposed horns as the dawning horror of her current situation dawned on her. She looked at Piccolo and saw not the protector of her children, but the dreaded Demon King that made her kind so hated. She didn't feel any comradery with Tien or Chiaotzu, just the fear of being chased through her childhood home by some murderous thug. Chi-Chi scooped Chika up off the ground and pushed herself backward.
Tien flinched. "Chi-Chi?"
He reached out and, to his shock, Chi-Chi shot a blast at him. "BACK!"
Tien withdrew his hand, looking hurt. Chiaotzu grimaced. "…same as always."
Chi-Chi snarled. "Monsters! Bastards! Hateful Crane killers! Stay away from me! Stay away from my daughter! S-Stay away!"
Piccolo growled in disgust, shame heavily present on his features. Tien receded back. Chiaotzu sighed. Chi-Chi kept a hateful gaze trained on all three of them, ready to snap and attack at a moment's notice.
A long, tense silence followed. The wind rustled through the tree leaves. Then, Tien spoke. "The Crane School...it murdered your mother?"
Piccolo spoke in a gruff whisper. "And your mother was a demon. A real demon, unlike King Piccolo."
Chi-Chi didn't speak a word. She kept her gaze trained on these men. These brutes. These (friendsofherfamilyandherhusband) instinctual killers. She'd watched them throughout this entire trip. Violence was their first response (inyourdefense) with never a consideration for talking things out. Those Cranes (tienandchiaotzu) and that fake demon (yourkidscallhimtheiruncle). She hated (noshedidn't) them!
And then, Chiaotzu spoke. "That's the same reaction we get every time, you know? When Tien and I come face-to-face with people whom our school has wronged, I mean. We face them, tell them who we are, and they call us monsters and brutes and killers and they tell us how we ruined their lives and how they see the Crane emblem as a blight on their lives…"
Chi-Chi flinched. Chiaotzu's face crumpled, but not in a way that suggested tears. He sighed. "...and they aren't wrong."
Tien nodded. "The Crane School wronged many people, Chi-Chi. Countless many. Part of Chiaotzu and I taking it over included a genuine desire to make amends, to beg forgiveness, to earn a second chance. We just…we never would have thought…"
As the two of them fell silent, looking genuinely ashamed, Piccolo finally spoke. "Every day, as I look down from the Lookout or as I travel the Earth for training, I see the results of what King Piccolo did to this world. Most people never think about him as anything more than a fairy tale or a section of history, but there are still negative repercussions that affect every inch of this planet, direct or indirect."
Piccolo's feet touched the ground and he walked up, getting down on his knees between Tien and Chiaotzu. All three of them looked at her. Chi-Chi sneered. "Don't think I'm just going to forgive what happened to me! I won't! I refuse! My mother didn't deserve to die! I didn't deserve to lose her! I didn't deserve to be so scared and so alone for all of those years! I-"
Tien began to lower his head. "We never considered that a victim of the Crane School's sins would ever be this close to us…"
Chiaotzu began to lower his head as well. "We never even thought about it, and that was short-sighted."
Piccolo began to lower his head as well. "We would never demand forgiveness or immediate clemency for any anguish you might have suffered either."
Chi-Chi's eyes went wide as all three warriors pressed their heads to the ground, submitting themselves to her wrath. And all three of them spoke in unison, their voices rich with regret. "We humbly beg your forgiveness."
—-
Chika's eyes fluttered open at the feeling of something dripping onto her face. Fat, warm drops hit her cheeks and exploded like miniature water bombs. Chika groaned and sat up, wiping her face. She looked up and frowned. "Mama? Wh-What's wrong, Mama?"
Chi-Chi's eyes were shimmering, tears flowing freely as she stared at these three, noble people in her life so easily bowing their heads to her. Begging forgiveness. And for something that none of them even did. Chi-Chi sniffled and sobbed, speaking in a thick, wet voice. "Wh-What am I doing? H-How could I be so childish, taking my anger out on the three of you…?"
Chika reached up, pressing her hand to her mother's cheek. "Mama. It's okay, Mama. You don't have to cry or be scared. Mr. Piccolo, Mr. Tien, and Mr. Chiaotzu are here! And Daddy says we can always rely on them!"
Chi-Chi looked down at her daughter and sniffed, her eyes red and puffy. She roughly scrubbed her hand over her face and then looked out to her husbands three friends…to her three friends. She smiled at them. And the three of them smiled back. Chika giggled and smiled too.
30 minutes later…
Chi-Chi adjusted the wristbands on her fighting outfit. She'd requested that Piccolo use his Magic Materialization to make one that resembled her outfit from the 23rd Tournament. Piccolo tossed his cape and turban to the side. Tien punched his fists together and Chiaotzu gave Chika a pat on the back. "Looks good on you! Just like your older brother~"
Chika was wearing the same outfit that Piccolo had given Gohan so long ago, when the fight with the Saiyan had begun. Chika beamed. "Thank you!"
Chi-Chi turned to her four travel companions, her horns gleaming in the sun. "We've made all of our preparations! Now it's time to go back to Dragon Rock! I need my mother's weapon, and we need those mushrooms!"
Chika, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo all pumped their fists in the air. "YEAH!"
